1967 - Clive's Top 5 Albums of Every Year Challenge

June 20, 2020 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

Over what will likely be the next few years I’m going to be ranking and reviewing the top 5 albums according to users on rateyourmusic.com (think IMDB for music) from every year from 1960 to the present. If you want to know more, I wrote an introduction to the ‘challenge’ here. You can also read all the other entries I’ve written so far by heading to the lovely index page here.

Ok, here we are at the end of 1967, let’s take a look around and see what happened besides a whole heap of great albums being released. The six day war ended with Israel’s victory, race riots broke out across the US and particularly in Detroit, three astronauts were killed in a fire at the test-launch of Apollo 1, Che Guevara was shot to death after his capture in Bolivia and pulsars were discovered. If you want to see some great photographs from the year then I’d highly recommend this article from The Atlantic.

Now, onto what we’re here for. Here’s what rateyourmusic.com’s users rate as the top 5 albums of 1967:

#1 The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico
#2 The Doors - The Doors
#3 The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
#4 The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced
#5 Leonard Cohen - Song of Leonard Cohen

Four of those are debut albums and thus new entries to our lists, only The Beatles have been here before. 1967 was such a stupendously strong year that I’m going to pick five more albums and throw them into the mix too:

#6 Pink Floyd - The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
#10 The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold as Love
#11 Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - Safe as Milk
#15 Aretha Franklin - I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You
#18 Bob Dylan - John Wesley Harding

I’m not exaggerating when I say this is the strongest year yet, and it’s going to take some beating so let’s get right into it, here’s my thoughts on and ranking of the above ten albums.

PiperattheGatrsofDawn — 10. The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn

Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd’s debut album is the only one made under Syd Barrett’s leadership, and the only one to feature him extensively as he left part-way through recording their next album as his use of psychedelic drugs and reported schizophrenia made his behaviour increasingly unpredictable.

This is a less polished, messier affair than their famous albums once Syd had left, but Syd’s eccentric songwriting talents are evident here. The album starts with a bunch of songs that have sections that are surprisingly poppy (The first two minutes of Flaming could easily be a song by The Beatles) but then descend into psychedelic, spacey trips of the 60’s variety. Pink Floyd’s ability to build a psychedelic soundscape is evident on Pow R. Toc. H where a whole host of instruments and occasional ambient chatter and shouting create a whole world in a song. That kind of musical world-building is present throughout this whole album, peaking perhaps with the rambunctious Interstellar Overdrive which ends in such a mass of noise that you feel like you’ve just been hit by a brick wall, or as Abbey Road engineer Pete Brown put it, recalling walking in on them recording the song, ‘I opened the door and nearly shit myself’. Lucifer Sam is perhaps my favourite song though, a brilliant mix of an infectious hook, driving guitar riff and the kind of otherworldly soundscape that makes this album what it is.

Overall, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn leaves me a little confused, but in a good way. I love where it takes me, the band clearly know how to create an atmosphere with their sound and although the whole thing hasn’t completely grabbed me for whatever reason, there’s something charming about the weirdness of the whole thing.

Song Picks: Lucifer Sam, Interstellar Overdrive

7.5/10

Another debut album. This time by the fabulously named ‘Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band’.

At its heart Safe as Milk is a blues record, but it’s not one of those predictable blues records. No, no, no. This is creative, gritty, and more than a little bit mad. Captain Beefheart’s (Don Van Vliet for those who don’t like eccentric stage names) vocals sound like the ramblings of a mad-man who doesn’t want you to understand what he’s saying. When you can understand what he’s saying it’s often so surreal and mad that it’s rather difficult to get a grip of. Take these lines picked out in the album’s Wikipedia article, from the song Abba Zabba:

Mother say son, she say son, you can't lose, with the stuff you use
Abba Zabba go-zoom Babbette baboon
Run, run, monsoon, Indian dream, tiger moon

Oh Captain, I’m lost, lost in a sea of mad nonsense. Of course, this is an extreme example and Mr Van Vliet is capable of writing some pretty simple lyrics too, take those in Call on Me, where he spends the entire song mentioning the many times his ‘baby’ can call on him.

If you’re lost and it’s all just a bit rough for you, then I’m Glad is the song for you. A surprisingly soulful pop-jaunt including the unexpected complement of some backing singers. It wouldn’t be out of place on a Van Morrison album. Delightful.

Safe as Milk has a fantastically grungy, raw sound, that captures a great energy, aided by Captain Beefheart’s drawly, growling vocals. It feels like a vivacious mix of the delta blues and punk, and it comes highly recommended.

Song Picks: Sure’Nuff ‘n’ Yes, I Do; I’m Glad; Electricity, Plastic Factory

8/10

NeverLovedaMan — 8. I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You

Aretha Franklin

The eleventh studio album by Aretha Franklin is the first to appear on these lists, and probably her most famous. It’s essentially a great collection of performances by one of the best vocalists we’ve ever had. Consisting mainly of covers, the album doesn’t do anything all that exciting instrumentally and the production feels a little old, even in the context of 1967.

The band plod along, providing a perfectly adequate and easy-listening backing to Aretha’s towering vocal performances, without adding much to them. The album opens with one of the finest pop recordings ever, a cover of Otis Redding’s Respect, you’ll all have heard it’s infectious, dance inducing and heart-filling brilliance, and it’s one of those rare songs that gets people of every generation to the dancefloor. The album doesn’t quite continue at that level, but then if it did it would be the undisputed best album of all time and all other music would be deemed pointless. Well, maybe not quite, but it’s still an impossible bar to meet.

The rest of the album is still great and Aretha continues to captivate until the closing notes of the beautiful A Change Is Gonna Come. She is one of those singers that makes you want to sing along all the time, but then immediately makes you realise that you sound like a strangled possum in comparison. It’s worth noting how at home Aretha Franklin’s own compositions sound here. My two favourite examples are Baby, Baby, Baby, which has a deliciously calm groove, and the backing vocals provide a luscious bedding to Aretha’s splendid vocals (did I mention she could sing?), and Dr. Feelgood, which is a strong display of the raspier side of her voice.

I Never Loved a Man The Way I Loved You is the capturing of one of the greatest singers of all time, at her best. Nothing more, nothing less.

Song Picks: Respect, Good Times, Soul Serenade

8/10

Their debut album, The Doors is one of those albums you’ll always see knocking around on top albums of all-time lists and is generally regarded as one of the biggest influences on the psychedelic rock genre.

The Doors is a rock album with a jazz-sensibility. There’s a lot of instrumental sections and a freedom with song structure that is refreshing. The Doors never hesitate to repeat things as much as they feel like, and it’s in their repetition that the album cements itself into your brain, slowly hacking away at it with it’s catchy and yet un-poppy hooks like a determined and slightly scary woodpecker.

Break on Through is a prime example, it barely has a verse and is largely just a repetition of the line ‘break on through to the other side’ which builds and builds vocally as Jim Morrison is almost coughing the line out of his throat by the end of his song, having depleted himself of all his vocal energy.

The Doors sounds quite dark, Morrison’s voice has a reverb on it that makes it sound like it’s coming from the bottom of some deep chasm, a voice from the darkness, something his slightly ghostly tone only amplifies. It’s an album where I appreciate it’s artistry more than feel an urge to listen to it as such but it creates an atmosphere unlike any other album in my view, and that, combined with the great instrumental performances, original song structures, and powerful and varied vocal performance from Jim Morrison, makes this whole thing rather special.

And I haven’t even mentioned Light My Fire have I? You should go and listen to it, it’s their most famous song for a reason, and that reason is that it is splendid, magnetic, catchy, dark, hypnotic and so many other adjectives. In less adjectives, it’s a masterpiece.

Song Picks: Break on Through, Light My Fire, Back Door Man

8.5/10

JohnWesleyHarding — 6. John Wesley Harding

Bob Dylan

Dylan’s eighth album sees him returning to a calmer sound, and although he’s still backed by a band, the sound is much more acoustic and folky than that of his last few albums. I see this as less of a departure from those albums though, and more of a relaxed blend of everything from Another Side of Bob Dylan to Blonde on Blonde.

Vocally and instrumentally this is less brash than anything before it, and in fact his vocals are rather soothing here. Lyrically it still has the surrealness of some of the electric trio of albums (and Another Side of Dylan) but as Dylan himself said, ‘what I’m trying to do now is not use too many words’. The lines are more calculated, there’s no lines thrown in just for the sake of a rhyme. This loses them some of their playfulness, and to me, their magic. With his looser lyrics it felt like a rhyme could always throw a song or an image into a new, unexpected direction, as if Dylan himself had no idea where it was going, which kept things exciting. On John Wesley Harding that’s lacking a little and although the more calculated lyrics make the songs leaner, it also makes them a little colder.

Nevertheless, this still features the kind of evocative imagery you’d expect on a Dylan album. You only need to look at the final verse of All Along The Watchtower (later covered by Jimi Hendrix in what even Dylan agreed was the better version) to realise that Dylan hasn’t lost his touch:

All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Barefoot servants too
Outside, in the distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching
The wind began to howl

I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine is another favourite, reminiscent of Visions of Johanna in it’s vocals, and bewitching me in a similar way whenever it comes on. The closer I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight is an underrated gem, a perfect country song, and the perfect signal of what was to come next. Even the vocals sound like they’re straight from his next album, 1969’s Nashville Skyline.

Recorded after Dylan had recovered from his motorbike accident in 1966, and around the same time as the famous Basement Tapes were being recorded (though they weren’t released until 1975), John Wesley Harding is Dylan at his most gentle, even the band plods along here, backing the change in Dylan’s vocal style perfectly. It serves as a great segue from the ‘thin mercury sound’ to a more country sound, and although it’s not as memorable as his best, it’s still one I turn to regularly, and a reminder of just how singular Dylan is. There’s no other album that sounds quite like John Wesley Harding, a black and white mix of folk, country, and lyrics to spin carefully shaped images in your mind.

Song Picks: John Wesley Harding, All Along The Watchtower, I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine, I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight

8.5/10

Are You Experienced Is Jimi Hendrix’s debut album, and widely regarded as one of the greatest rock debuts of all time. It’s another album that had different songs on the UK and US release. I’m going to be reviewing the US edition because I prefer the cover (see above, isn’t it glorious?), and because it has Purple Haze on it, and the UK edition doesn’t. Frankly, you’d have to be rather silly to review an album without Purple Haze on it if there’s a version out there with it on.

The aforementioned Purple Haze opens the album, and might just be the most emphatic announcement of the arrival of any artist on the first track of their debut in history. After a staccato intro Hendrix comes in with one of the best guitar riffs ever written, which is soon added to by some superbly scattershot drumming from Mitch Michell and another messy, infectious, riff from Hendrix, backed by Noel Redding’s gritty, wide-as-a-landscape bass. It encapsulates everything that’s great about The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Hey Joe was the band’s first single after Hendrix was plucked from backing guitarist obscurity and eventually ended up under the management of ex-Animals member Chas Chandler. Chas had enjoyed Hendrix’s performance of Hey Joe live and in a moment of rock ‘n’ roll history, sought to find Hendrix a permanent band, which ended up with the aforementioned Redding and Mitchell. The three perfectly complement each other and Hey Joe is another great example of this. They lay down an infectious groove which expands into a cosmic whirlwind of guitar solos, busy and brisk drumming and solid bass grooves holding the whole thing together. Mitch Michell is, in my eyes, one of the main reasons for Hendrix’s success, I can’t imagine a more perfect drummer for him. He has a light-touch jazz style that means he can be superbly busy and mesmeric while never taking over the song. This busy, hyperactive style goes well with Hendrix’s brilliantly filthy and virtuosic guitar work. Hey Joe’s solo sections are a perfect example of this.

The Wind Cries Mary is an example of Hendrix’s often under-appreciated lyrical skills. With a Dylan-esque talent for imagery he builds a variety of scenes which conclude with the wind uttering ‘Mary’ in one way or another, culminating in this fabulous last verse:

Will the wind ever remember
The names it has blown in the past?
And with its crutch, its old age, and its wisdom
It whispers no, this will be the last
And the wind cries Mary

The album’s 60 minute running length is chock-full of great psychedelic rock and blues songs and features classics such as the Hendrix guitar showpiece (well you could say that about all of them to be fair) Foxey Lady, the blisteringly pacey and irresistible Fire, and of course the rolling, fabulous Mitch Mitchell showcase Manic Depression.

The only negative thing to say about Are You Experienced? Is that it feels a little more like a greatest hits collection than an album. The production quality is not completely consistent (see the great I Don’t Live Today, which sounds rather thin), and it just doesn’t feel as cohesive as what was to come. I’m being nit-picky there though, as this is honestly one of the best rock albums you’re going to hear, and the fact it’s a debut is honestly rather mind-blowing.

Song Picks: Purple Haze, Hey Joe, I Don’t Live Today, The Wind Cries Mary, Manic Depression

9/10

SgtPeppers — 4. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

The Beatles

The Beatles’ eighth album was their first following their retirement from live performance in August 1966. It’s a concept album performed by the fictionalised Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, an idea born in Paul McCartney’s brain on a flight where he thought of creating a song including an Edwardian military band. Again, like Revolver, it incorporates a whole variety of musical influences such as Indian, psychedelic and circus music. To me, it perfects what Revolver began.

The album starts with the delightful title track as over the hum of a crowd talking the band announces it’s arrival, ‘It was 20 years ago today, that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play…’, the crowd cheers and we’re off. It’s a fun song full of positivity, joy and fun, and it perfectly sets the mood that you’re listening to a fictional band’s performance. Although the crowd noise never re-appears (until the penultimate goodbye track from the band), you’ve still been transported into that environment, and it’s partly that context that makes the album so wonderful to me.

The album is a radiant beacon of joy. It’s whimsical, full of catchy, almost nursery-rhyme like melodies, and yet it never gets annoying. Quite the feat.

With A Little Help From My Friends sounds like a kids song (save for the ‘I get high with a little help from my friends’ line) and perfectly encapsulates the childish fun that a lot of this album has. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds was inspired by a picture drawn by Lennon’s son, who came home from nursery one day with a picture of his friend Lucy in the sky, and it was titled as the track is. The song is generally believed to be about LSD, with the title alluding to that (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds) however Lennon has strongly denied this (you can watch him denying it here). I believe more in the line that it’s a reflection of his love of ‘Alice In Wonderland’ as a lot of the imagery in the song’s brilliantly vivid lyrics reminds me of Lewis Carroll’s style. The iconic opening verse is a great example:

Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes

Anyway, whatever the song is about. It’s a merry, catchy, jovial song which shows a band unafraid to create something which could be considered quite childish, and to me, it’s that childish sense of fun that makes this album so special. The fact that this song was inspired by a child’s picture, just makes that idea even more great.

It feels kind of foolish to talk about all the songs on this album, similar to The Beach Boy’s Pet Sounds from 1966, this album feels like a whole, and talking about individual songs doesn’t do the album much justice. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is vivid, colourful journey into the mind of some of the best pop songwriters we’ve ever had. Even When I’m Sixty Four, which I find too simplistic out of context and don’t usually enjoy, shines in the context of this album. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is an unbridled joy, and has a special place in my heart. I’m going to stop my review there before I use the word ‘joy’ even more times than I already have.

Song Picks: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, With A Little Help From My Friends, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Getting Better, Within You Without You

9/10

Whereas Are You Experienced? sounded like the greatest of greatest hits collections, Axis: Bold as Love sounds like an album. The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s second album was released just 7 months after their first, and sees them venturing deeper into psychedelia.

Before we start talking about the album, let’s talk about that controversial cover, which none of the band had anything to do with and Hendrix particularly disliked. He didn’t see the relevance of the band being depicted as various forms of Vishnu, and felt it would have made more sense if the cover was influenced by his Native American background. The cover was banned in Malaysia because of how it appropriates the Hindu god.

At 38 minutes, this album is significantly shorter than the band’s debut, and it feels like a tighter, more cohesive ‘experience’ because of it. Hendrix is clearly pushing what he does in the studio here with the opener being more of a skit than a song as Mitch Mitchell interviews him about space with both their voices warped before the guitar travels around the stereo field, creating the image of falling into a psychedelic black hole. It’s weird, but it really puts you into the mood for what’s to come.

The album also features Hendrix performing some softer material, Up From The Skies has wonderful gentle bounce to it, Hendrix’s voice sounding particularly warm and comforting as he sings about an alien visiting earth and being less than impressed with what’s going on. Again, the use of the stereo image to swing Hendrix’s guitar around makes the whole thing an otherworldly experience. Castles Made of Sand is honey in song form. It’s sweet, gentle and smooth as all hell, using the change of the seasons as a metaphor for the changes in Hendrix’s own life. Perhaps most famous of the soft songs though is the gorgeous Little Wing, which ends in a magnificent, stratospheric and yet chilled solo.

Besides these breaks in the schedule though we’ve got the band at their absolute rocking best. Spanish Castle Magic sounds huge and features a riff that could obliterate whole planets. As Hendrix’s starry solo bounces around half-way through the track you feel as though you’ve been shot into space out of a cannon. Guitars may sound thicker nowadays, and drums more slick and punchy, but there’s still not many songs out there that can compete with the sheer ferocity of this track. Neil Redding’s ability to carry a track on his own is really emphasised on the poppy Wait Until Tomorrow where he provides a lot of the thrust of the song. A track that also features some great phasing work on the drums, making Mitchell’s drumming sound positively cosmic. Speaking of cosmic, let’s talk about the end of the closing title track. Mitchell’s short and otherworldly drum solo marks the start of a Hendrix guitar solo that, when combined with the seriously psychedelic sounding drums, is like some ginormous god picking you up and spinning you through the whole universe. It really is that good.

The whole band is on top form on Axis: Bold As Love, and though they were already stupendously good at creating tracks that were infectious, heavy and transformative, this is where they really nailed what it means to make an ‘album’. I’m rather excited about 1968’s Electric Ladyland, the band’s final album.

Song Picks: Spanish Castle Magic, Little Wing, Axis: Bold as Love, Castles Made of Sand

9.5/10

songsofchohen — 2. Songs Of Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen

Excellent, Leonard has finally joined the party! Although, this is not an album you’d want to put on at a party unless you want everyone to leave feeling all melancholy and reflective, having spent the ‘party’ staring at the ground contemplating the pointlessness of their existence . Songs of Leonard Cohen is the wonderfully originally named debut album (yep I know, another one) from the Canadian poet.

It’s very much an acoustic guitar led album, but features lots of subtle touches that gently add to the album’s dark atmosphere (see Master Song & Winter Lady), including Nancy Priddy’s gorgeous backing vocals.. What really makes the album though, is the combination of Cohen’s gentle nylon-string guitar fingerpicking, his almost spoken word singing style, and most importantly of all, his poetic lyrics.

In a way, the guitar playing and ‘singing’ is quite bland, but in this context, where the words are so majestic, that’s exactly what you need, nothing should distract you from them. The album opens with the famous Suzanne (first published as a poem in 1966) which features a heavenly chorus ending in the so-good-I’ve-run-out-of-superlatives line ‘For you've touched her perfect body with your mind’. The final verse is a great example of how stupidly brilliant our man Leonard is with words:

And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone

Excuse me while I just go and rip up everything I’ve ever written. The album continues much in this vain and I could plonk pretty much any of the album’s multitude of other verses here and marvel at their glory.

By the time So Long Marianne, one of the greatest songs ever written, comes round, what is a surprisingly full band sound complete with drums doesn’t sound too out of place. After all, though the album is quite sparse in many ways, when you really listen in there’s actually rather a lot going. The drums I’ve mentioned are overly busy, but not quite enough to distract from a song that is as touching, poetic, enveloping and sadly catchy as So Long Marianne, one of the multitude of timeless songs that 1967 has brought us.

The Songs of Leonard Cohen is like a book of poetry in musical form. Perfectly performed and produced, it’s the fleeting meeting of two art forms, creating a melancholy classic that sounds so unique I don’t think you ever forget your first listen of it. I, for one, can remember exactly where I was when I first entered its mystical world.

Song Picks: Suzanne, So Long Marianne, Master Song, Winter Lady

10/10

Velvet&Nico — 1. The Velvet Underground & Nico

The Velvet Underground

It’s unthinkable now that an album as iconic as The Velvet Underground & Nico wasn’t an immediate success, but it wasn’t. The album was initially a sales failure (entering the album charts at number 199), many record stores refused to stock it, radios didn’t play it, and critics largely ignored it. This is largely attributed to the controversial topics the album contains such as drug abuse and prostitution. However, I think a big part of it was just that it was so far ahead of it’s time that people couldn’t handle it. Nowadays, the album enjoys a well-earned status as one of the best albums of all time. In fact, the rateyoumusic.com community rates it not only as the best album of 1967, but the sixth best album of all time, higher than any album we’ve had so far on this challenge.

The album has been so influential on subsequent music that Brian Eno famously said that although it only sold 30,000 copies initially, ‘everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band’. The album’s recording was funded by Andy Warhol, who managed the band and also created that iconic album cover, perhaps the most famous album cover of all time. Although Warhol is listed as the producer too, he didn’t really have much influence over the sound, but Lou Reed states the fact that he just let them do exactly what they wanted is the main reason for the album that resulted, and in that way you could say he’s had a pretty big influence on it.

Part of the genius of the album is just how varied it is and yet how unified it sounds. The opener Sunday Morning is a beautifully blissful track that embodies the feeling of a sunny Sunday morning. The xylophone gently skips along as Lou Reed’s vocal seems to glide over you like a cloud, but a big fluffy white cloud as opposed to a sinister dark one. It’s a beautiful song. Compare this with the raucous closing track European Son and you’d never know they came from the same album. The band marches on into an aural oblivion of shrieks and fuzz and clatter and noise and out of tune guitars, a complete and utter chaotic assault on the ears. But the journey to that ending, and the musically suicidal ending, makes complete sense somehow.

As the band progresses from the marching, relentlessly cool I’m Waiting For The Man, to the melodic (and Nico’s first vocal performance) Femme Fatale, to the challenging and yet surprisingly catchy S&M inspired song Venus In Furs you get the feeling that every song on this album is going to be unlike anything else, a small fragment of brilliance. And it turns out that feeling is right. Run, Run, Run rushes along brilliantly, telling its stories of drug-hunting and abuse with a noisy spring in it’s step. The brash guitar ‘solo’ as sign of the chaos to come. All Tomorrow’s Parties sounds like a warped folk song, Nico’s vocal adding a great surrealness to the so-free-it’s-close-to-falling-apart instrumentation. Heroin though, is the most Velvet Underground song here, a song that tells of the use of the titular drug, alternating between a gentle guitar part and a rapid thrashing of chords, as the Reed’s vocals and thoughts barely keep up. All the while there’s a drone that gradually turns into a messy, scrambled squeak as the song enters it’s chaotic finale. It’s the free-est thing I’ve heard since Free Jazz way back in 1960, an uninhibited mess of noise and ideas that turns into something brilliant and incomparable. Then we’re back into a more accessible sound with There She Goes Again, a delightfully catchy number complete with backing vocals and ooooo’s. Nico returns for her final vocal appearance in a song where her German accent (that adds so much to her vocals) is particularly prominent, I’ll Be Your Mirror. The penultimate track The Black Angel’s Death Song is a perfect primer for the aforementioned noisy closing track European Son. There’s just enough to latch on in Reed’s vocal to keep you sane, even if a violin screeches along in an out of tune manner throughout the song. By the time European Son has come and gone, you’re left wondering who has just walked off with your mind, but you also feel strangely free.

The Velvet Underground & Nico is an experience like no other to listen to, it’s both challenging and endlessly rewarding. There’s a perfect mix of accessible stuff, and stuff that is just completely mind-bending. It’s both a mess and a masterpiece.

Song Picks: Sunday Morning; Heroin, Run Run Run, There She Goes Again

10/10

1965 - Clive's Top 5 Albums of Every Year Challenge

May 24, 2020 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

Here we are, slap-bang in the middle of the 60s. But what happened in 1965? Well, Ed White became the first American to conduct a space walk, Muhammad Ali knocked out Sonny Liston to keep the heavyweight title he gained in 1964, Malcolm X was assassinated, and Martin Luther King led his famous civil-rights march to Selma leading to Johnson eventually singing the Voting Rights Act. In Britain Winston Churchill died and the 70 mph national speed limit was introduced.

And here are the top five albums of the year as rated by our lovely rateyourmusic.com users:

#1 John Coltrane - A Love Supreme
#2 Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
#3 The Beatles - Rubber Soul
#4 Bob Dylan - Bringing It All Back Home
#5 Otis Redding - Otis Blue

Coltrane’s back, and we’ve got two Dylan albums?? Count me in. We also see a return from The Beatles and Otis Redding’s first and only appearance. As usual I’ve had a look a little further down the list and spotted a few others that intrigue me:

#6 Vince Guaraldi - A Charlie Brown Christmas
#7 Nina Simone - Pastel Blues
#9 Jackson C. Frank - Jackson C. Frank
#20 The Sonics - Here Are The Sonics

Yes, you read right, I’m going to review a Christmas album. Anyway I’ve been an idiot and set myself the rather large task of reviewing nine this time, so I’d best get started. Here’s my thoughts and ranking of the above nine albums.

Here Are the Sonics is an album that I’ve often heard mentioned as an influence among some of my favourite punk bands but have never got round to listening to.

The first thing you’ll notice is just how terrible it sounds. I mean, it sounds like someone got a tape, smashed it with a mallet, converted it to a low-quality mp3, then uploaded it to youtube before downloading it again on the lowest quality setting. But this isn’t going for any sound quality awards, this is garage-rock, man. This is from an era before you could afford to have decent studio equipment in your house, and so if you didn’t record in a studio, it was likely to sound like the band had been shrunk to the size of borrowers and were playing in a tin can, underwater.

Anyway enough of that, what makes this album is the energy. Lead singer Gerry Roslie has a powerful voice and does that 50s/60s ‘waaaaaauuuuuu’ thing with a fantastic grittiness, and at least 5 times every song in a way that is fun and will bring a smile to the most angry of faces. Mainly covers with a couple of originals thrown in, this is a fun set of songs performed with infectious, charming energy, and I can see why it was so influential. It’s the first album I’ve heard in this challenge that has a really punk attitude, an attitude of ‘here we are, this is what we do, deal with it’. I feel most of the people they influenced improved on what they do here, but it’s remarkable to hear the birth of a more DIY sound and the punk attitude I’ve mentioned. Here are The Sonics! is probably more important than it is great, but a worthy listen nonetheless.

Song Pick: The Witch, Strychnine

7/10

‘Err, Clive, have you gone mad? It’s May and you’re reviewing a Christmas album??’ Yes I am. There’ll be no seasonal discrimination here. Christmas or not, this deserves a review.

A Charlie Brown Christmas is the soundtrack to the film of the same name, which despite being a massive Peanuts fan, I still haven’t seen.

So, once I’d got past the weirdness of listening to a Christmas album while it’s sunny and warm outside and I haven’t been able to see family for months, I began to realise just how much I’ve been missing in not making this a regular part of the Christmas rotation. You should listen to it now too, it makes you feel like a maverick. Find it, press play and scream, “screw you society and your silly calendar, I’ll do what I want, when I want, thanks!!” and maybe throw a chair out the window for good measure.

Silliness aside, this is actually a super relaxing album, so throwing a chair out to it would be nigh on impossible; the gentle jazz will make you put that chair right back down and sit on it in a contemplative manner. It feels like the Christmas equivalent of 1664’s Getz/Gilberto, a musical substitute to meditation.

Guaraldi is a jazz pianist, and these are jazz renditions of various Christmas classics, with a children’s choir sprinkled on top now and again to really up that Christmassy feel. It’s more charming than George Clooney and the band has a wonderful relaxed vibe to it that is just perfect for these songs. Fred Marshall’s double bass feels like it’s giving you a hug with it’s big, heavy, gently rumbling notes. Jerry Granelli’s drumming is so laid back, it’s easy to forget it’s even there at points, and Guaraldi’s piano solos are like the stars twinkling on Christmas eve, as he gently pads his way up and down the keys like a musical cat walking on the piano. I prefer the jazz instrumentals to the tracks with kids singing carols, but there’s not enough of the latter to ever make it annoying, at least not for me. This one will definitely be getting a spin at Christmas this year.

Song Picks: O Tannenbaum, What Child is This, Linus and Lucy, Greensleaves

7/10

Rubber Soul is The Beatles’ sixth studio album and the production has taken a notable step up since A Hard Day’s Night from 1964’s list.

This is the first time The Beatles had an extended time in the studio without other commitments to distract them, and it shows. There’s a bigger soundscape to the recording, more space for all the instruments to shine in and just a general feel that more time has gone into the songs. This generally works in its favour, but also loses it that slightly rougher, more raw edge that A Hard Day’s Night had. Lyrically this is more interesting, though still far from their peak, and there’s catchy choruses a-plenty as you’d expect.

The album opens with 3 great songs, the simple and catchy Drive My Car, the majestic Norwegian Wood featuring a great appearance on the sitar and probably the album’s best lyrics, and You Won’t See Me, a song where the improved production is particularly noticeable, and that features some great, fun, backing vocals that add thickness to the otherwise sparse sound. Where I struggle is with the album’s middle section, where songs blend into one a little too much. They’re all enjoyable enough, but perhaps too breezy and simple to be all that memorable. I’m Looking Through You is the exception here; it’s irresistible chorus melody followed by a punchy guitar part making it stand out from the crowd. The closer, Run For Your Life is another example of what The Beatles do best: an infectious sing-along melody with a bouncy rhythm section and some cheery guitar solos.

A happy, summery album full of catchy and enjoyable songs but that isn’t quite interesting enough to maintain my attention during an attentive listen. There’s better to come from this lot.

Song Picks: Drive My Car, Norwegian Wood, I’m Looking Through You

7/10

Nina Simone’s Pastel Blues is largely famous for the epic 10 minute rendition of the traditional Sinnerman that closes the album, but although that is undoubtedly the highlight, there’s plenty else to enjoy here.

These are all live performances, featuring generally sparse arrangements which really prove that Nina Simone is one of the most interesting vocalists we’ve ever had. She’s certainly one of my favourites. Her voice has a deep sadness to it, and yet also a roughness, an anger. Not to mention the fact it’s probably one of the most powerful voices I’ve ever heard. I mean I imagine if she sang the vocal tour-de-force Be My Husband at a shed, that shed would fall down under the sheer ferocity of her voice. The track features nothing but her vocals and some barebones percussion, and it’s spectacular; an inspirational display of how much interest can be created with the right vocal. It’s quite unthinkable that Nina had initially wanted to become a concert pianist and only started to sing because some clubs she played at asked her to.

Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out and the beautiful End of the Line show her talent for softer pieces, with a more traditional arrangement, creating a richer instrumental backing, but never taking the focus of Simone’s voice. Tell Me More and More and Then Some shows her often underrated piano skills. She’s got a lovely deft, but quick touch on the keys that provides the perfect accompaniment in the gaps between her vocal lines. It’s another highlight, showing the remarkable dynamic range in both her piano playing and singing.

But let’s talk about the star attraction, Sinnerman. The track starts with a simple, rhythmical piano part, but Simone’s vocals, a delicately footstepping bassline and some hi-hat tapping quickly join the fold and we’re away. The song tells of a man running from God’s judgement of the sins he’s committed. The song has a frantic, rumbling energy to it, perfectly capturing the feel of someone running to endless places in a hope to hide from an all-seeing God. It’s impossible not to get pulled in, and by the time Simone bashes out a few frantic chords on the piano and screams ‘power’ for the last time (she screams it a lot) as the band comes in for a final crescendo, you’re left feeling rather out of breath. It’s a masterful performance, a powerful releasing of every ounce of emotion inside her, which makes whatever you listen to afterwards seem a little inadequate and fake somehow.

Song picks: Be My Husband, Tell Me More and More and Then Some, Sinnerman

8/10

Otis Blue is Otis Redding’s third album and features mainly covers of soul hits with three originals.

The album opens with the original Ole Man Trouble and it’s clear as soon as Otis starts singing that his voice is magnificent, gritty, rich and timeless. If the highest quality, most complex tasting honey could sing, this is what it’d sound like. The way he can switch from powerful, to tuneful and soft, to both (somehow) is magical. There’s plenty else here to keep you entertained beyond some of the best vocals you’re ever likely to hear here however. For a start, the originals all show Otis’ considerable songwriting skill, Respect (later to become a signature song for Aretha Franklin) in particular is an absolute banger, made as much by Otis’ desperate, gritty cries for ‘respect!’ as it is by the horns that punctuate every chorus. The final original, I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (to Stop Now), shows Otis’ softer side. A beautifully simple love song where Otis’ gentle croons turn to a powerful, desperate growl by the end of the song.

As for the covers, Otis and the band completely make them their own, even Can’t Get No Satisfaction has a level of vocalised frustration to it that makes it stand on its own besides The Rolling Stones’ version, though that is perhaps the least convincing one. Highlights for me include the superb Down in the Valley, the fabulously uplifting Wonderful World and the groovy as all hell Rock Me Baby where Otis spends three and half minutes asking desperately to be ‘rocked’ in a manner that I don’t think anyone would be able to refuse.

Otis didn’t make many more albums, he tragically died in a plane crash in 1967. This is generally regarded as his best and it feels like an essential capturing of one of the best singers we’ve ever had, at the peak of his powers. It’s also the kind of album I think anyone would enjoy.

Song Picks: Ole Man Trouble, Respect, Down In The Valley, Rock Me Baby

9/10

Jackson C. Frank’s story is a sad one. This is his first and only album and he was unable to maintain his career due to a variety of mental health problems and addictions. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, and after struggles with depression, Frank ended up homeless in New York and died of pneumonia in 1999 aged 56.

Jackson C. Frank is entirely composed of Jackson’s vocal and guitar with nothing else added, and was produced by Paul Simon. Yes, that one. Apparently, Frank was so nervous he had to have screens all around him in the studio and the whole thing was recorded in just three and a half hours.

His voice has a perfect dark sounding reverb, helping give his hollow, low voice a powerful atmosphere. The guitar switches from simple chords to more complex picking and is reminiscent of Bob Dylan in many ways, although Simon’s production makes it sound much heavier.

Each song feels important here, and there’s a power to Jackson’s performances, particularly the vocals, that makes this sound like a lost classic somehow. As well as songs about being sad (e.g. the excellent Blues Run The Game) there’s political content here that’s just as powerful as some of the stuff Dylan was recording in the previous two years. Don’t Look Back urges us to keep looking out for corruption and injustice:

So don’t look back
Over your shoulder
Keep your eye on freedom shore
‘Cause you know
The brave men with you
Also pay the wages of war

He sings these words at the top of his voice, with a simple, loud guitar part that sounds like it’s close to unravelling. It’s a truly powerful piece. Milk & Honey was later covered by Nick Drake, and seems to foreshadow Jackson’s life. ‘I think I’ll be moving on’ he sings over a lovely picked guitar melody. Move on he did, but only to more sadness. My Name Is Carnival is my personal favourite, and has the strongest lyrics on here in my opinion. Frank spins a web of imagery over its six verses, all ending with the word ‘carnival’, perhaps my favourite is the penultimate:

The fat woman frowns at screaming frightened clowns that move enchanted
And the shadow lie and waits outside your iron gates with one wish granted
Colours fall, throw the ball, play the game of Carnival

This album proves Frank to be an expert songwriter, one who crafts melancholy, heavy melodies, can accompany these with a whole host of great lyrics, and perform the whole lot with a remarkable presentness, as if nothing else in the world mattered at that very moment.

‘Just like anything, to sing is a state of mind’ Jackson sings on the lovely closing track Just Like Anything. He’s clearly in that state of mind here, and it’s one of music’s saddest stories that he was never captured in it again.

Song Picks: Blues Run The Game, Don’t Look Back, My Name Is Carnival, Just Like Anything

9/10

Bob’s back. Bringing It All Back Home is his fifth album, and the first after he famously ‘went electric’, one night in 1966 having ‘JUDAS!!’ shouted at him at a gig at the Free Trade Concert Hall in Manchester. Yep, the one in England. A lot of Dylan’s folk fans had decided he’d sold out and no longer wrote music that spoke to them. I can see why they might think the latter, if they were following entirely for his direct political output then that had now very much disappeared (although this particular album is more political than often claimed in my view), replaced by an abstract poetry which, absolutely has less obvious meaning, but is in my humble opinion the best lyrical period of any artist, ever. The complaint that he’d ‘sold out’ I still don’t understand. Yes, he was using an electric guitar like a lot of the popular bands of the day (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones etc), but this sounded like no one else out there. An energetic mix of jazz like improvisation and loudly performed poetry.

The album opens with Subterranean Homesick Blues, Dylan’s first song to break the top 40 in the US (it got into the top 10 in England) and the emphatic announcement that electric Dylan had very much arrived. Often described (probably hyperbolically) as the song that invented both rap and music videos (you’ll no doubt have seen the below video, which originally featured in the documentary Don’t Look Back) it’s a patchwork blanket of anti-establishment imagery, inspired very much by Allen Ginsberg and the beats. Dylan’s social commentary is still alive and well here, as shown by this verse:

Oh, get sick, get well, hang around a ink well
Hang bail, hard to tell if anything is gonna sell
Try hard, get barred, get back, ride rail
Get jailed, jump bail, join the Army if you fail

By the time the song finishes with my favourite lyrical section you’ve had so many crazy images running through your head that it feels like you’ve taken some strange pill:

Better jump down a manhole light yourself a candle
Don't wear sandals try to avoid the scandals
Don't want to be a bum, you better chew gum
The pump don't work 'cause the vandals took the handles.

We haven’t got time to try and dissect every song here, try being the important word there. This is an album where every song is a goldmine of images and ideas, most of which I don’t understand, because I’m not sure all of it can be understood, but that’s what makes it kind of magical. Any meaning is always hovering just out of reach. And hell, I think sometimes people get bogged down with everything having to have a meaning. Sometimes a painting can just be beautiful, a view majestic, a piano solo pretty and inventive, even if there’s no obvious meaning attached. I’m not sure why it’s any different with words, and to me reading pretty much any Dylan lyric from the magical trio of albums Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde is proof of this. The meaning may float tantalisingly out of reach, but there’s no doubt what you’re reading is fabulous, fresh, spectacular, and when the lyrics come alive in the songs, well, it’s heaven.

Honestly, I could write a paragraph about all these songs but I’ll spare you that and talk about a couple more highlight moments.

Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream is an absurd piece about Dylan discovering America before Columbus. It’s a prime display of Dylan’s humour and endless imagination, but perhaps what I love most about it is the start of the song. Dylan starts the first verse ‘I was riding on the Mayflower when I thought I spied some land, I yelled for Captain Arab, I have you understand’ before bursting into laughter along with the rest of the band (who were supposed to have come in). ‘Ok take 2’, Bob says after they’ve caught their breath again, and the band and Dylan proceed to nail it on the second take. It’s a perfect capturing of the way these songs were recorded, mostly within three or so takes, with the rest of the band never having heard them before, and with Dylan frantically jumping from instrument to instrument in between takes giving people ideas for the next one. Take three would often sound like a completely different song from take one. Dylan never sat still, the band never performed it the same way twice, and that’s how everything sounds so immediate. Like the lightning in a bottle of a first performance being captured before repetition has allowed it to escape.

Mr Tambourine Man is probably the most famous song on this album (The Byrds’ cover of it went to number 1), and starts off the acoustic half of the album. It’s a song that I’m not even going to bother to try to describe, I’m just going to plonk the final verse here:

And take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow

If I had to pick a favourite Dylan verse, it might just be that. My favourite performances of the song didn’t come until The Rolling Thunder tour in the 70s however, when Dylan’s rusty, cloudy vocal adds a wonderful added layer of mystery. One such performance features at the start of Michael Scorcese’s excellent Rolling Thunder Revue documentary about that tour.

Dylan’s band haven’t quite hit the peak of the ‘thin mercury sound’ they perfected on the next two albums, and ‘Maggie’s Farm’ remains one of the few songs of this era where I’m not that big on Dylan’s vocal, and that’s what holds this back compared to the other two I mention, but, as I’m about to explain, those are two of my favourite albums ever, so that’s not saying much.

Song Picks: Mr Tambourine Man, Subterranean Homesick Blues, She Belongs To Me, Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream

9.5/10

Widely regarded as Coltrane’s masterpiece, and indeed one of the greatest albums of all time, A Love Supreme was recorded in one session with Coltrane leading the quartet of Mccoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums.

A Love Supreme portrays, in a jazz format, the story of Coltrane’s spiritual awakening. Although there are dissonant sections, it’s not an album I’d describe as challenging as such. Coltrane is not playing in an aggressive or boundary pushing way, it feels like he’s just sat back and let whatever is in him come out, without forcing anything. Don’t get me wrong, the saxophone playing here is still sublime, it’s just effortlessly sublime. This is a recording of a master of his art, at the peak of his talents (we’ve had a few of those this year haven’t we?).

But, although it’s Coltrane’s playing that lifts this to the realms of magic, the rest of the band deserve a mention too for creating the perfect companion to Coltrane’s saxophone awakening. Part II: Resolution is a great example, Tyner effortlessly switches between stabbing at chords and twinkling over notes while Elvin Jones creates a flurry of noise on the drums that somehow keeps a perfect beat, providing a perfect and engaging introduction before Coltrane weaves his saxophone magic. Elvin’s work on Part I: Acknowledgement is notable too, with him creating an almost tribal sounding beat of effortless complexity, there’s so much going on, and it happens at such a pace that it has to go down as one of my jazz drumming highlights. Tyner once again shows his prowess of combining chord stabs and twinkling in his majestic solo on Part III: Pursuance, where he plays at such pace and with such accuracy and feeling it’s truly remarkable. When Coltrane finally comes in and Jones is busy creating yet another masterfully complex and rapid beat, you’re left wondering if you’re actually listening to four humans, or indeed some crazy talented aliens sent down from outer space.

I don’t think you have to know much about the spiritual background to the composition of this album to enjoy it. If you sit back it’ll take you places, wonderful, wonderful places. It’s an album I have no hesitation in calling ‘beautiful’, and it’s certainly one of my very favourite jazz albums.

Song Picks: Part I: Acknowledgement, Part III: Pursuance

9.5/10

5de9704b9bd8773ddbcb1de962f62386.1000x1000x1.jpg — 1. Highway 61 Revisited

Bob Dylan

Highway 61 Revisited is my favourite album of all-time. 10/10

I was going to leave it there, but I won’t leave you hanging like that, so I’ll write a bit about why I like it so much. This is Dylan’s sixth studio album, which is, with the exception of the 11 minute closing track Desolation Row, entirely electric.

I always like the following quote from Bruce Springsteen about Dylan and feel it sums up this album rather well (emphasis mine):

‘The first time I heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my mother listening to WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind ... The way that Elvis freed your body, Dylan freed your mind, and showed us that because the music was physical did not mean it was anti-intellect. He had the vision and talent to make a pop song so that it contained the whole world. He invented a new way a pop singer could sound, broke through the limitations of what a recording could achieve, and he changed the face of rock'n'roll for ever and ever’

That snare shot that ‘sounded like somebody’d kicked open the door to your mind’ opens the album, and perhaps its most famous song, Like A Rolling Stone, bold, brash announcement that what Dylan called ‘that thin, that wild mercury sound’ had arrived. Once that famous snare hits what follows is a magical soundscape of skipping piano, floating organ, shimmering tambourine and the bass and electric guitar holding it all together. To me it’s a sound of instant joy. Whenever I get new pair of headphones or set of speakers, this is the first song I blast out at full volume. I remember at a good friend of mine’s stag do (Josh Keighley for you podcast listeners) we were renting out a house and on arrival, in one of the massive rooms, I found this massive stereo system. There was no auxiliary input. I scrambled through the CD collection hoping for something, and to my utter joy I found this album. I put it on, cranked it up, and just laid there on the wooden floor, floating up into the dreamland that Dylan and his band create on that majestic opening track. Yeah, I’m great fun at parties.

Besides that opening track, which I suspect is my most listened to song ever, this album is jam packed with energetic poetry backed by a band on top form. Tombstone Blues has a great ramshackle feel to it where it sounds as though it’ll fall apart at any moment, but never does. It Takes A Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry fills me with an insatiable urge to start skipping around, Paul Griffith’s piano again proving to be one of the under-appreciated stars of this album. From a Buick 6 is missing Griffiths, but it’s made up for by a bouncing, friendly bass part which juxtaposes nicely with Dylan’s thin, harsh vocal.

Ballad of a Thin Man has perhaps the album’s best lyrics and vocal performance, and also feels significantly darker and more ominous than the rest of the album. Although no one’s ever got to the bottom of who the ‘Mr Jones’ mentioned in the song is, Dylan used to say ‘this is a song about people who ask me questions’ when performing it live, which suggests it’s about someone who interviewed him, something broached in the biopic I’m Not There. Whoever it is, Dylan wasn’t much of a fan, and spends the song’s six-minute duration tearing them down, singing emphatically every time the ‘chorus’ comes round:

And you know something is happening
But ya' don't know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?

Griffiths is back with incomparable, bouncy piano parts that make Queen Jane Approximately and Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues, not just poetic marvels that sew a tapestry of words in your mind, but ones that do so with an irresistible spring in their step. Highway 61 Revisited is sandwiched between these too and features the prominent use of a tin-whistle, again giving the piece the feel of a train chugging along that is prominent for the majority of this album. Dylan’s humour is particularly on point here as he blends a crazy cast of characters and situations, all linked by the titular highway:

Well Mack the Finger said to Louie the King
I got forty red, white and blue shoestrings
And a thousand telephones that don’t ring
Do you know where I can get rid of these things?

And Louie the King said "Let me think for a minute son"
And he said "Yes, I think it can be easily done
Just take everything down to Highway 61

A thousand telephones that don’t ring? Where does he think of this stuff. Fabulous.

The album closes with the acoustic Desolation Row, where Dylan’s guitar and harmonica are accompanied only by a bass and Charlie McCoy’s fabulously light-hearted sounding lead guitar. It’s an eleven and a half minute masterpiece that shows Dylan at his absolute lyrical peak. The performance is captivating. I mean the piece has no chorus and has the same melody for every verse of it’s epic duration, but you’re never bored, and as Dylan sings his last verse you’re left wondering if you’ll ever hear something quite so beautifully evocative ever again.

Highway 61 Revisited is a masterpiece, it’s my favourite set of lyrics ever committed to an album, and it’s backed by instrumental performances that feel immediate, affecting, and free as a hummingbird. I’ll stop gushing now, but this thing is glorious and it makes me smile just knowing it exists.

Song Picks: Like a Rolling Stone, It Takes a Lot To Laugh It Takes a Train to Cry, Desolation Row, Ballad of a Thin Man

10/10

1964 - Clive's Top 5 Albums of Every Year Challenge

May 15, 2020 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

Well, we’re moving along nicely through the 60’s and we’ve now landed in 1964, so what happened outside of music? Well Khrushchev fell from power in Russia, President Johnson was re-elected as president of the USA after completing what would have been the final year of JFK’s term. Race riots broke out in Harlem and other US cities, Harold Wilson won the election in the UK as leader of the Labour party and the world’s first lung transplant occurred. And now that’s out the way, as usual, we’ll get to the music. Here’s what rateyourmusic.com users rate as their top 5 albums of 1964:

#1 Eric Dolphy - Out to Lunch
#2 Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto - Getz / Gilberto
#3 Charles Mingus - Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mings, Mingus
#4 The Beatles - A Hard Day’s Night
#5 Herbie Hancock - Empyrean Isles

We’ve got our first Beatles entry, our first bossa-nova album and the return of the one and only Charles Mingus. On looking further down the list there’s two Dylan albums which I absolutely can’t pass up this opportunity to talk about, as well as an album by blues legend Muddy Waters, an artist I’ve always wanted to listen to. I’ll add them all to the pile too:

#6 Bob Dylan - The Times They Are A-Changin’
#11 Bob Dylan - Another Side of Bob Dylan
#15 Muddy Waters - Folk Singer

Once again we’ve got eight to get through. Strap yourselves in. Actually, just sit down, seatbelts are probably excessive for this. Here’s my thoughts and ranking of the above:

The Beatles’ third album and their first appearance on this list, A Hard Day’s Night features songs from the soundtrack to the film of the same name, and is the first to feature entirely original compositions.

A Hard Day’s Night is a testament to the fact that The Beatles really were the masters of coming up with a catchy melody. If this album was a balloon and catchy melodies were air, it would explode with a bang at a similar volume to that of a sonic boom. In terms of hits, we’ve got the title track as well as Can’t Buy Me Love (factually inaccurate, I’ve bought loads of things I love) but everything around them is just as catchy and fun.

I generally find The Beatles’ vocals a little bland and thus I prefer their later albums where they get more experimental lyrically and instrumentally, but there’s no doubt that this is a very strong set of simple, catchy pop songs. At times they’re a little too simple, particularly lyrically, but there’s a level of charm to the whole thing created by the simple vibrant guitars (particularly George Harrison’s 12-string Rickenbacker) and the well performed harmonies that alleviates this problem somewhat.

A Hard Day’s Night has a certain level of rawness that I appreciate too, the mix isn’t quite as clean as it is later in their career. The bass and guitars have a level of mud that makes the vocals stand out a little more, and it just gives the whole thing a lovely happy-go-lucky feel, and a slightly, dare I say it, punky edge. A 30 minute, 60’s pop, sugar rush.

Song Picks: A Hard Day’s Night, Can’t Buy Me Love, I Should Have Known Better,

7.5/10

EmpyreanIsles — 7. Empyrean Isles

Herbie Hancock

Jazz pianist Herbie Hancock’s fourth album and his first to make it onto these lists, like Out to Lunch (which we’ll get to soon) and many others we’ve heard previously, features Freddie Hubbard on cornet, who along with Hancock, is very much the star of the show.

On the opener One Finger Snap Hancock’s characteristic light, quick touch is evident as his right hand dances up and down the piano like a grasshopper with 73 legs. It’s a style completely different to Thelonius Monk’s, with more notes, less space and less rhythmic interest. Things tend to sound like scales played delicately but quickly with a wonderful precision and with accents providing the variation and interest. It’s a style I rather like. Hubbard is on characteristically fine form here too and the two work very well together. On the dreamy Oliloqui Valley Hancock comps twinkly chords beautifully as Hubbard’s cornet creates a musical painting of colourful dots across a canvas held together by Ron Carter’s rock solid bass and Tony Williams’ enigmatic drum flurries. Carter’s soulful bass solo towards the end of the track is also noteworthy.

Cantaloupe Island, a jazz standard nowadays, features a wonderful piano line from Hancock and Hubbard is perhaps on his finest form of the whole album here, accentuating the piano’s rolling chords delicately, but with plenty of feeling, like the vocals to Hancock’s instrumental bedding. The way Hancock manages to keep the song’s core line going while soloing around it is incredibly impressive, and it took me a while to realise there weren’t two pianists playing.

The 14 minute closer The Egg is perhaps the most experimental piece here, with less of a central theme. Hubbard weaves in and out of Williams’ drum whirlwind which seems to get more and more ferocious as the song goes on. Hancock is remarkably quiet in the first half of the track, but makes the most of it when he is in the limelight, chatting sparkly melodies and ideas to the rest of the band to respond to. Things go eerily quiet in the middle, as the band seemingly go to sleep, Carter’s rumbling bass gently waking everyone up out of their slumber. Hancock wakes with some of the finest piano playing on the album, with a timeless solo, evoking the night sky turning to dawn as a forest begins to wake, insects skittering about their morning routines.

Empyrean Isles is just a really solid jazz album, featuring a quartet that works beautifully together playing some really memorable compositions, and you can’t ask for much more than that.

Song Picks: Cantaloupe Island, Oliloqui Valley

8/10

FolkSinger — 6. Folk Singer

Muddy Waters

So, I got a new set of headphones through the post the other day, which will likely be the last in my embarrassingly large collection for a while, because I absolutely love them. Fittingly, the first album I listened to on them was this one, and indeed it was the first time I’d heard it. Within the first few chords and words of the opening track My Home Is In The Delta I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. It sounded so crisp, so deep, so wide, so bloody alive. I had a massive smile on my face that I struggled to remove for quite some time.

It turns out, it wasn’t entirely my headphones; this is just an absolute masterpiece in acoustic recording. That reverb on Muddy’s voice and the instruments is so good I’d say it’s the darn finest reverb I’ve ever heard. Enough about the production quality, what’s the actual music like you say? Ah, yes. Well, luckily, it’s pretty damn good too.

First of all, despite the title (which was chosen due to the popularity of folk at the time), this is very much a blues album, and a wonderfully bare-bones one at that. Waters plays acoustic guitar and sings, backed by Willie Dixon on bass (he’s also to thank for the brilliant production), Clifton James on drums and Buddy Guy on another acoustic guitar. The arrangements leave plenty of space for Muddy’s fabulously dynamic, deep and soulful vocals and the guitar playing has that wonderful blues groove that everyone loves, right?

On that last point I have to confess I have a bit of a bias towards the blues, it always brings me nostalgia for a time when I used to spend my summers at a blues festival near my Dad’s in Switzerland. The blues has always had a cosy predictability to it, something I don’t generally like in music, but that the blues manage to get away with.

Talking of predictability, once you’ve heard the opening track, you’ve pretty much heard them all here. I suspect a large amount of them are in the same key even but it hardly matters. Muddy’s vocal performance is so full of character, and so beautifully recorded that you feel like you’re sat in on a historic moment, a fly on the wall to one of the most influential blues musicians out there. The repetition is comforting, a warm hug in dark times, a 3-point shooter using the same graceful technique to hit the net time after time.

Song Picks: My Home Is In The Delta, The Same Thing, You Gonna Need My Help

8/10

This may be Dolphy’s first appearance on these lists as a bandleader but we’ve heard plenty from him before, he’s just been stealthily avoiding the limelight. He appeared on Coltrane’s 1961 releases Africa/Brass and Ole Coltrane as well as Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz from the same year. Incidentally, he also appears on Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (yep, that’s what it’s actually called) from this year. Unfortunately, he died later on in 1964, of a reported diabetic coma, so this, sadly, is the last we’ll hear from him as a bandleader.

Out to Lunch is generally regarded as an avant-garde jazz classic, but what does this philistine who knows nothing about jazz think about it? Well, let’s find out. I love the name and the cover, so that’s a good start.

The opening track Hat and Beard refers to our man Thelonious Monk from the last post (1963) and opens with a bass and brass walk with a childish fun to it. The xylophone only serves to increase this fun as it comes in playing the exact same line, which plays throughout the song in one form or another. The song sounds a bit like everyone taking it in turns to practice a very specific sequence of notes while the rest of the band mucks about trying to distract them. It’s interesting, slightly mystical sounding, has a strange amount of parallels to ambient music, and is quite unlike any jazz I’ve heard so far. Kudos.

Something , Sweet Something Tender interestingly mixes a rather jolly saxophone part with an ominous bass part, combining to create an opening with a strange tension to it. Again, the piece sounds very much like play, sparse play though, the kind of play where someone is lurking around the corner about to abduct you. Actually it’s probably not that dark, but it does sound like something that could be playing as a mildly scary, slightly uncoordinated monster wakes up in the woods of a fairytale, distracted by every falling leaf as he stumbles on looking for the hero.

Gazzelloni is probably my favourite, with Dolphy’s flute playing being both impressive and playful (there’s that word again). I mean it’s out of control, ‘you can’t put a leash on this baby!!’ he screams as he unleashes a flutey wall of noise that sounds like a bunch of comedic birds twittering at each other. Only Freddie Hubbard’s trumpet manages to shut him up, answering in an equally joyful, if slightly less reckless manner. It all combines to create a piece that’s happier than an un-budgeted trip to the sweet shop, and as manic as a kid shortly after consuming all said purchased sweets.

I’m not going to go into the other two tracks in detail, they’re creative, dazzling, confusing and fun just like those I’ve already struggled to describe. This is an album that shows Dolphy’s considerable skill as a multi-instrumentalist (he plays flute, clarinet and saxophone at various points) as well as as a bandleader. It can’t be easy holding something as experimental as this together. This is not an easy listen, and after my first few listens I was left a little confused. The more familiar it’s gentle madness got though, the more it grew on me, and I can now firmly say I’m a fan. I can’t help but feel it’s a little too challenging, and perhaps more inventive than it is a joy to listen to at times, but I can’t deny its fun, its vivacity, its creativity. It must have been one hell of a lunch.

Song Pick: Hat and Beard, Gazzelloni,

8/10

MingusMingus — 4. Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus

Charles Mingus

Just look at that album title would you!! No one but Charles Mingus would have the audacity to just repeat his surname five times and call that an album title. What a man. Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus which I’m just going to refer to as Mingus x5 from here on for obvious reasons, is essentially a greatest hits album. Now before you scream at me, “Clive, you’ve already given the classic Out to Lunch a measly 8/10 and now you’re telling me a greatest hits collection is an album, who do you think you are? Alan Partridge?”, just hear me out. This is Charles Mingus, he wouldn’t just slap a load of previous recordings together and release that, oh no, he’s re-recorded them, reworked them a little in places, renamed them, and also added a cover of Mood Indigo for good measure.

Now, with the exception of Hora Decibutus, which is a new version of E’s Flat Ah’s Flat Too from Blues & Roots, and Mood Indigo I’ve not heard any of the original versions of these songs so they’re all new to me.

The opener II B.S. reminds me why I fell in love with Mingus in the first place. Catchy brass lines, stomping bass and saxophone flurries building up to a chaotic crescendo of smashed cymbals and shouting, before breaking back down again. As always with Mingus, there’s plenty to latch onto, and it makes you want to tap your feet.

Then, to prove that he’s far from a one trick pony, comes IX Love, a song of dissonant tenderness. The brass instruments are reminiscent of The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, creating a kind of uneasy carpet for the rest of the music to sit on. The sax plays off this beautifully, with a more straightforward minor scale feel to it, it’s all a little uneasy, but nevertheless memorable.

Celia is probably my favourite track here, which starts with a sweet, cloudy saxophone line before Mingus’ bass takes us for a walk through a night-time scene of alto-sax shrieks and a hug of tubas accompanying us on this mystical journey. The tension builds with some stabs towards the end before the bass and drums leave space for a majestic conversation between a whole host of saxophones up there in the trees, as you lay on the grass and look up at the stars.

The Mood Indigo cover is performed with similar aplomb and then Better Get Hit In Yo’ Soul comes up and again reminds you just how well Mingus crafts a rowdy and yet catchy number. This one sounds like a party that’s got out of hand but no one cares. What? Tony’s gone and knocked over the grandfather clock?? Susan’s had a few too many and smashed your entire glass cabinet? Marlon’s accidentally set fire to all your cigars and you’re all stumbling about in the Cuban smoke wondering what’s going on???

Who cares, man? This’ll make a great story.

Theme for Lester Young is perhaps the album’s least interesting track but thankfully Hora Decubitus ensures we finish on a high. Mingus x5 is a pretty great place to start for anyone wanting to check out just why Mingus is a bloody genius. It features him at his most energetic and his most tender, and although it’s not as cohesive as some of his other work (Tijuana Moods and The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady spring to mind), the fact it was all recorded in the same sessions means it doesn’t feel as disjointed as your usual greatest hits collection.

Mingus doesn’t make the top 5 again on any future rateyourmusic.com list, though I’ll probably be checking out his 1972 album Let My Children Hear Music when we make it to that year, as I’ve heard plenty of great things about it. But for now, this seems like a good way to say goodbye to the cigar smoking genius. A collection of his best material, performed emphatically well. Cheers Charles.

Song Picks: Celia, Better get Hit In Yo’ Soul, II B.S

8.5/10

AChangin — 3. The Times They Are A-Changin’

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan’s third album, and the first to feature entirely original compositions was to be his last with an intensely political message.

I remember I heard the title track in the cinema during the opening of Watchmen, well before I was particularly into Dylan. I remember thinking at the time that the it had such an urgency, such a sense of grandeur, and such an all encompassing sound that was remarkable for a song featuring only vocals, an acoustic guitar and a harmonica. The thing sounded huge. Obviously the cinema sound-system played a part in that, but I still feel like that about the song. It’s colossal. It’s a shame the rest of the film didn’t live up to that opening, which is still one of my most memorable musical moments in cinema.

This is both Dylan’s most and last political album. The humour of his debut has gone, there’s no breezy love songs anymore, this is just a set of stark, brilliantly observed songs about the fraught environment that Dylan was surrounded by in the 60’s.

The title track The Times They Are A-Changin’, which was deliberately written as an anthem for the change of the time, succeeds in doing just that. It’s prophetically performed, brilliantly written, and one of the most impactful songs I’ve ever heard. A real favourite.

Other highlights on this album include With God on Our Side, where over 7 minutes Bob tells how various opposing countries and ideas have claimed to have god on their side, and that if this is true god’s supported a whole manner of ills such as genocide and death. Dylan ends the song prophetically with the line: ‘If God’s on our side, then he’ll stop the next war’.

One Too Many Mornings is a rare moment of respite from the political preaching, and besides the title track, is my favourite song from the album. The line ‘and I’m one too many mornings, and a thousand miles behind’ that is repeated throughout the song is one of my very favourites, and delivered with the relatable resignation of never being where one wants to be.

When the Ship Comes In and The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll are two other examples of Dylan at his political best, the former with a sense of drama that mirrors The Times They Are A-Changin’.

There’s a lack of humour to this album for sure, and its political message can get overbearing, but there’s no doubt it contains some of the finest political songs ever written, and they’re sung, as ever, with an urgency and importance that Dylan never failed to bring across. It’s not quite as consistently engaging as Freewheelin’, and a bit more one-note, but it’s still rather special.

Song Picks: The Times They Are A-Changin’, One Too Many Mornings, With God On Our Side, When The Ship Comes In

8.5/10

Getz/Gilberto is a bossa nova album by American saxophonist Stan Getz and Brazilian guitarist João Gilberto. It also features Antonio Carlos Jobim on the piano who had a big hand in composing most of the tracks but obviously wasn’t deemed important enough to get his name on the album title, or perhaps two slashes is just one too many slashes? Who knows.

As mentioned in my review of Charles Mingus’ Tijuana Moods way back in 1961 I’m a big fan of two musical cultures coming together, and I’m delighted to say that this is another instance of it working really well. Considered as the album that popularised bossa nova around the world, Getz/Gilberto was a commercial as well as a critical success back in 1964. It’s opening track The Girl from Ipanema (Garota de Ipanema in Portuguese) is a song you’ve no doubt heard of, and is probably the most well known bossa nova song worldwide.

I’m not going to hide my feelings until the end of this review; this album is an absolute delight. Joao Gilberto’s nylon string guitar playing is as smooth and simple as butter (it’s just milk innit), and his singing has such a quiet, relaxing, contemplative feel to it that it’s hard not to get whisked away. Stan Getz’s saxophone playing may not have the technical prowess of someone like Coltrane but my, does it have feeling. That thing hums and sings in his hands, it expresses so much with so little, and is easily some of my favourite saxophone playing. I mean just listen to Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars), the song starts with one of Astrud Gilberto’s appearances, she also stars on Girl from Ipanema, as she sings of quiet nights and stars in a beautifully evocative way, again in a similarly un-showy and relaxed manner to Joao Gilberto’s vocals. Shortly after the words ‘oh how lovely’ float from her lips, in comes Getz with a short saxophone lick that took me straight to the promised land, a moment of pure magic.

Listening to all 33 minutes of this has got to be one of the most relaxing experiences anyone can have. I mean yoga, meditation and all that just seems redundant now that I’ve discovered this. I feel like I’m taking off, slowly rising over the Earth, zooming out on all the troubles of the world, before being planted back gently to wherever I’m sitting as the final saxophone note of Vivo Sonhando plays. This is a masterpiece in understatedness, every note is effective, nothing is overdone, and it all works together to create one of the prettiest things I’ve ever heard. It’s really hard to create a happy and relaxed sounding album that doesn’t sound painfully cheesy, and even less easy for one to include the saxophone so extensively (a famously cheesy instrument thanks to the 80s). Sometimes it’s not about pushing boundaries, but about mastering your craft so much that you can make something masterful sound as if you could play it while asleep. An absolute triumph.

Song Picks: Girl from Ipanema, Corcovado,

9.5/10

Dylan’s fourth album still has nothing but his voice, acoustic guitar and harmonica on it, but don’t let that fool you, Bob has taken a very new direction here. Gone are the political songs, replaced by a set of introspective, at times surreal, songs performed with a particular lack of vocal restraint.

Another Side of Dylan is a lyrical turning point, and the glorious birth of the more abstract poetry that would fill the rest of his 60’s albums. Lyrically, this is some of his strongest work in my opinion, and they are very much a main part as to why this is such a fascinating and underrated album. I think Dylan’s vocals are perhaps at their most testing here, he pushes them to where they perhaps shouldn’t go, but they have a more delicate feel to them. Gone is the invincible and prophetic Dylan of The Times They Are A-Changin’, he’s been replaced by a more poetic, introspective, and fragile version.

Chimes of Freedom is a case in point, a masterpiece in my eyes. Go and listen to it, I implore you. I’d say just read the lyrics, but you’d miss out on a truly captivating vocal performance and the wonderful melody that ends every verse. Here’s a section for you to read in the meantime:

Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked it's poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leavin' only bells of lightning and it's thunder
Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
And the poet and the painter far behind his rightful time
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

The imagery created is fabulous, and the Rimbaud influences are evident (a poet Dylan was reading plenty of at this time and a massive influence on his lyrical style). This is where Dylan turns from a folk musician, to a singing poet. From someone who points a finger at things that exist, to someone who creates things that don’t.

To Ramona is another personal favourite of mine and another lyrical masterpiece which again shows Dylan’s uncanny ability to captivate without the need for a chorus. The verses end with a familiar, powerfully performed melody and before you know it, you’re hooked into yet another world of word mastery.

Dylan’s humour is evident here too in I Shall Be Free No 10 and particularly in Motorpsycho Nightmare where you can hear Dylan cracking himself up, his story getting more and more ludicrous as he decides the way to appease a farmer whose daughter he’s just been caught in bed with is to tell him he looks like Fidel Castro. This is the 60’s, in America. Bad idea.

Here’s some lyrics from the underrated gem My Back Pages:

A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

I mean just read that! I’m not sure what it means, but it’s amazing. Which is pretty much how I’d sum up Dylan’s lyrics from this point forward. Sure, his lyrics were easier to decipher before, but they’re now full of mystery, full of imagery, full of stardust, like a magical dream that floats in your memory as you wake up, unable to grasp it again.

I’ve not even mentioned the famous It Ain’t Me Babe? which closes out this album, there’s just too much to talk about.

Another Side of Bob Dylan is one of Dylan’s more challenging albums, but one that is well worth the effort. Give it a few spins, let those slightly erratic vocals become more normal and then sit back and focus on the words, you won’t regret it.

I have to be honest, I didn’t think Dylan was going to take the title for 1964 when I started listening to these and Getz/Gilberto had it in the bag right up until earlier today. Then I listened to this again, and the fact that I’ve been listening to this thing for 10 years and still find new bits of magic every time is pretty spectacular. It’s unfair to compare an album that’s been a part of your life for so long to one you’ve heard for the first time a week or so ago, but this just pipped it to the post.

9.5/10